Many folks are like me, unwilling or unable to pre-order Killzone 2 from Gamestop in order to get the Killzone 2 demo. For whatever reason, here are step-by-step instructions for setting up an EU PSN account so you can download that demo without pre-ordering the full game:

Create a new user on your Playstation 3, you can do this from the left-most column of options on the XMB.
I suggest using a name like <YourRegularUsernameHere>EU. I have TimeDoctor as my regular PSN name, and TimeDoctorEU for the EU PSN downloads.

Proceed to the second icon from the right of the XMB, “Playstation Network” and make a new Playstation Network account.

Here you will want to select the United Kingdom as your Country or Region.

Select English as your language, of course.

Use the e-mail address you created earlier in the dialogs that follow.

Go into the Playstation Store and download your free demo of Killzone 2!

Now you’re all set! If anything went wrong, feel free to ask in the comments. Don’t forget about all the other cool paid content the brits get that we don’t like Command and Conquer PS1 and Dark Mist! Also, these instructions can be used for almost any region, just find another mailing address and email address.

Generally when I look out on the surface of the Podcast listings on my iPhone I’m confronted with two things; NPR and Video Games. Neither of which are exactly expanding my listening horizons.

Every so often though, I find a few that fit within those publishing categories but also expand my interest and thinking. Here are three episodes listed in order of least-to-most video-gamey.

Fresh Air from 1/28/09:
This episode continues the fine tradition of Terry Gross’ 30+ year tradition of excellence through interviews of cultural and intellectual icons. The recently deceased John Updike’s past Fresh Air appearances taking the place of the show’s usual format. I will admit to having never read one of Updike’s books, though after hearing this interview I am inspired to try them.

What They Play from 02/03/09:
The meat of this episode has little to nothing to do with the usual content of this podcast, which is why I find it so surprising. The usually chipper host John Davison surprises us by being boring and uninterested in his own show to start, and then he throws out a substantial bit of discourse with ngmoco‘s CEO, Neil Young. Complete 180 from a usual What They Play episode, but not entirely unexpected from John Davison. Listen to this show if you have any interest in the iPhone gaming market. Then go download ngmoco’s great games if you haven’t already.

A Life Well Wasted Episode 1:
Usually when you get to the most game-y side of discussion you’re prepared for unintelligible fart jokes and prattling on about the latest Gears of War in a round table format from a group of schmucks over Skype. I’m certainly no exception having contributed to that for a good while. Then along comes Robert Ashley to class the joint up without giving up any kind of personality. Though the subject matter of the first episode is kind of played out, it is a great example of what to expect from this new podcast in the future.

There you have it, three podcasts to which you most likely haven’t listened. Enjoy.

Jeff Buckland over at AtomicGamer has written up something that I wouldn’t normally dream of reading, a wish list for a game. However, this is one game that I happen to think was overlooked by many strategery fans for the minimal things in which it was lacking, instead of the greatness for which it is.

So, What does Jeff want for Supreme Commander 2?

For all of Supreme Commander‘s talk of epic scale and millions of lives hanging in the balance, we never saw a single one of those people we were fighting to protect. The whole battlefield was full of robots with humans only occupying the ACUs, and you never seem to fight in population centers or heavily inhabited areas. Other than what the story dictated to us, for all we knew we were just fighting with robots out in some field somewhere for fun. For the sequel, having fights in cities would be incredible, and would probably do a better job of showing off the scale of the units than the original game did.

And that is a point with which I couldn’t agree more, the main thing that lacked in the first game was atmosphere and personality beyond robots. I didn’t care for the single player at all due to the restrictions placed on the tech tree throughout and would have loved to have played some multiplayer missions through SimCity style cities as they’re pulverized beneath the feet of my giant robots.

It is like that old science fiction trope of “What is the point to conquering the universe if you won’t have any sentient beings left under your control once you do it?”

So what then is the point of having giant robots if there aren’t any squishies (and their dwellings) for the giant robots to trample underfoot?

In any case, read the rest of Jeff’s article. Not because it talks about giant robots, but because it is written in the style of a real Supreme Commander fan instead of the generic “fan(s) of the genre” tone you might get on other sites.

Most people would probably expect the Dual Shock 3 to be the best of both worlds; the useless wobbling from the SIXAXISâ„¢ disaster, and the great design and heft of the Dual Shock 2. Unfortunately, someone at Sony forgot to fix the triggers (R2, L2) for first person shooters.

Most likely they don’t understand why that is important for shooters.

Well, that is all in the past now, and what we’re left with is terrible for shooters or anything else that relies on you to retain your grip on those triggers. Fortunately, some kind pacific rim company is popping out these accessories as depicted in the above diagram which repairs the issue. I’ve finally got a pair of the “Real Triggers” via amazon and can say they work as intended. Not sure they’re worth the $5 they go for on amazon, but they’re still good.

Now the only problem is that some games refuse to let you rebind the button layout so you can use your newly repaired triggers. Battlefield: Bad Company I’m looking at you.

Of course, nobody sane would ever release 10+ gigabytes of data on floppies. In order to visualize the result I consulted my handy tools, google image search and the gimp.

But how many floppies is it?

Seven Thousand, Three-Hundred and Sixty-Seven Floppies!

The Lord of the Rings Download Manager estimates that it’ll take about four hours to download the remaining 8+ Gigabytes.

If I were to install all Seven Thousand, Three-Hundred and Sixty-Seven Floppies, it would take about 491 hours, assuming only 4 minutes per floppy.

Based on the download speed of a 56k modem (which rarely worked as advertised on my phone lines), ten gigabytes would take about Seventeen Days, Eighteen Hours, and Five Minutes to download, assuming the connection is never interrupted by someone picking up the phone to call for pizza.

The number of floppies is probably unrealisticly low since my calculations don’t take into account the floppy headers, and the archive data that interprets each disk in the chain.

Can you imagine if you went into Radio Shackâ„¢ and they had one of those cardboard cutouts with a Seven Thousand, Three-Hundred and Sixty-Seven Floppy Free Trial of Lord of the Rings Online cellotaped into one bundle?! There could only be one set in the store!

Why not Horror sliders for Horror levels? So if I’m about to go asleep, I can turn it from bleeding-walls and scary little girls to flowers and puppy dogs?

Other than that, the FEAR 2: Preposterous Subtitle Demo on PS3 has good shooting mixed with a mediocre PS3 port. At one point the audio in the demo cut out almost entirely (not due to Spooky/Scary sound effects as far as I can tell), so I quit the game out of frustration.